Humpback Whales Washing Ashore

CHARLOTTE, N.C. Feb. 18, 2019— Days after a humpback whale washed ashore at North Carolina’s Oregon Inlet, two more appeared over the weekend on the barrier islands that line the Virginia-North Carolina coast, according to a Facebook post by the Lago Mar on the Back Bay community in Virginia.

One humpback whale was found early Sunday in Corolla, N.C., and the second came ashore late Saturday or early Sunday near Sandbridge in Virginia’s Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, said the post.

“These are the second and third juvenile Humpbacks found dead on the Currituck Banks Peninsula in less than a week,” said the post. “Another was found on February 12 north of Oregon Inlet near Nags Head.”

TV station WTKR reported a Currituck County Sheriff’s deputy was the first to find the 33½-foot whale that washed ashore in Corolla on Saturday night.

The Center for Wildlife is conducting a necropsy, after not finding “signs of scavenging or trauma,” the station reported.

Details were not available on the humpback that washed ashore Saturday or Sunday in the Sandbridge area of Virginia Beach.

The first of the three, found last Tuesday at Oregon Inlet, was 38 feet long and was reportedly seen floating for at least a day off North Carolina’s coast before it washed ashore, the Island Free Press said.